Melancholic Ecstasy...

"You are not rock; you are not jazz; you are not fusion; you guys are INDIAN OCEAN!!" - This was what I wanted to say. But then, the reticent me, came up with the utterly cliched - "You know, I have been following the fusion scene a lot these times, and you guys are just the best!", while giving Rahul Ram a hug onstage after their performance at a venue in Chennai in 2006. I got one thing rightly done, though. Got his autograph on the cover of a CD of theirs - acquired from their manager, and which was, incidentally, my first ever authentic music CD purchase. Add to this the fact that despite being an ardent music lover, I had been a proud pirate all my life. Earlier, it was the penury of student life that forced me into it, & later on it was the sheer ease of downloading free music. This trait left me by sheer happenstance through two turning point events in my life - one, attending this concert here and experiencing a passion to pay for quality music and two, meeting Ayn Rand - in fiction(pun intended), of course. I shelved out 150 bucks for the CD - which, considering the fact that 150 constituted a full 1.5% of my then salary, and that 150 is an amount which could have bought me enough booze for the night, and also that possessing Rs. 150 in college days used to be a luxury of millionaires - was a pretty sumptuous amount - and the fact that such an amount is being spent on an authentic music CD(which has just 8-9 tracks) didn't much help the cause either!
All this, was of course after I heard their last performance of the night - a song which sounded odd & was totally incomprehensible - because basically its about 1000 years old, is almost entirely in Syrian if I'm correct, and which enjoys a cult status in fans across the globe - Kandisa. A group of youngsters had cheered for and demanded this song since the show began, partly because they loved it, and mostly because it was the only Indian Ocean song they had heard - and this shouldn't come come as a surprise because this is one of those bands who can develop a cult following of one-song initiated fans with ridiculous ease. I myself had come over because I had heard Bandeh & Bharam Baap Ke, and both were testimony to the fact that my money on the show's ticket will not go waste. And I was not wrong.
Since that concert, I became a hopeless addict.
There shouldn't exist that 'If there be one word to describe this.....' phrase, because it is just so....so....unfair.....in one word!!! :-P But on a serious note, it does do a colossal amount of injustice to a plethora of words like ethereal, mellifluous, extraterrestrial, intense, hypnotic, & most importantly earthy, which, incidentally, are some of the most suitable adjectives that can be employed to describe Indian Ocean's music. A composition of theirs - Ma Rewa, which was also the penultimate song of the evening, and which is an ode to the river Narmada, has a starting combo of guitar, tabla & dubdubi(an instrument used by tribals in MP with its structure and sound being incomparable to any other recognized instrument known to me). The result is a unique sound which induces such passion, fun & intensity that you actually feel yourself to be in between the waves of Narmada, being swept from one point to another in an oscillatory manner! The song was introduced by Ram as - "Nimaad ka ilaaka, Vindhyachal ki chaon, Narmada Maiyya ka aanchal........"(read earthy!) and then went on to inform that this is basically a folk song sung by tribal fishermen, whose sole means of existence is the river, thereby christening her as Ma Narabda(thats how we MP dwellers call her!). The vocals finish within the initial 2 minutes and the rest of the three minutes or so follow an increasing pitch & breakup-reconstruction pattern, culminating in a violent frenzy of drums by Amit Kilam - this, as was interestingly suggested by some fan in some forum, indicates the destruction of the river. Given the band's ideology, which is pro NBA, this seems to be a plausible explanation - an explanation which may not go down very well with dad, who, incidentally, holds Medha Patkar and her NBA activists as nothing but a bunch of unpatriotic morons - but that's not the point here. :-)
"There's this blue coloured, long haired, dope smoking guy we all know. This song is about him" said Ram.
"Wha....!" - uttered the crowd in unison, instead of the more ritualistic - "Who?"
Agreeing with Yann Martel about his view on the spoken english of Indians, I too became "bamboozled".
"Shivji." said Ram, as a matter of factly.
And before anyone could react, Teevra Aadi began to be played. Starting with a gothic chant type of an opening, the song soon got settled into the same rhythm Indian Ocean is so famously known for - periods of high octane percussion & vocals, followed by rhythm inducement. Though the lyrics may sound abstruse at times, but then, doesn't it add to the charisma!(Remember Stairway to Heaven?) Asheem Chakravarty, through his sheer powerful vocals, took this song to an entirely new level altogether. As their website says, he's truly 'the man with the golden voice'!
They had earlier followed through the gig with some other breathtaking compositions like Jhini & Bandeh. Jhini, rendered famously earlier by Anoop Jalota, must have been a tough act to perform. Jhini Chadariya has been a bhajan since time immemorial and to morph it into the genre of rock is something like asking Rembrandt to do a me - no offense meant to rock with that! But surprisingly, in what they came up with, Kabir's iconic words sounded like being tailor made for their music! Such great philosophy, so very well complimented by Sushmit Sen on guitar & Asheem on vocals! Bandeh, disappointingly for me, did not have its electric touch, as the band opted for an acoustic rendition, going by the mood of the evening. But then, some songs just don't need instruments - they become so larger than life that even a hum is utterly satisfying! One thing is common in both songs and many other IO songs though - the extended classical aalaap coupled with drums - an act which in western rock is sometimes quite amusingly called as 'orgasm section'; an example being there in Whole lotta love. And, as it happened with Led Zep, being different pays!
There is no star in this band - there is no one guy who steals the show, with others doing their jobs inconspicuously. They all participate in equally in the effort, an effort to create effervescent, soul-stirring music. In all their history, including their struggle years, which stretched almost a decade, they have never done cover versions on stage or elsewhere. Never, Ever! Whatever music that has come out of them till now, including their first gig, has come straight from them, and no one else. That's what I call courage. Sushmit, for that matter, is an entirely self taught artist, so any possibility of covers, even while learning, goes out of the window! Everyone does that today - if you are an Indian Rock band, the mentality is that you will do covers only, or will come out with numbers that will be heavily inspired, in both music & lyrics, with their western counterparts. Molotov Cocktail, the local Chennai band who introduced Indian Ocean did just that and ended up almost raping 'Jeremy'. Poor Pearl Jam! But nonetheless they were heavily & understandably for that matter, cheered by the crowd which mainly consisted of people who were shouting 'slogans' like "Increase the bass, man!!" - this explaining the use of the word 'understandably' earlier in this sentence.
Listening to their album Jhini, which I purchased as mentioned earlier, I was surprised that they didn't play Bhor at that concert. It is unarguably their best song & one of the best that I have heard till now, in any genre. Everything, every single detail, every single component of that song is amazingly brilliant. A human's journey through change, heartbreak & realization is traced through a bird's flight in early morn. Its a must hear for anyone even remotely interested in quality. Des Mera is another song in that album which catches attention with lyrics like - "India sir ye cheez dhurandar, jeb daliddar, dil hai samandar"!
They make you sway with hopeless abandon, and make you feel proud of tabla being Indian, all over again!
Indian Ocean is a genre in itself, and, as they themselves proclaim at their website, it is the sound of contemporary India getting to know itself...